Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Man in Black (and Yawning Yellow)

Fifty-plus-old man; beating the motionless morning motorcade a pieds on the Kanda kerb. Oh, his shiny black shirt tucked into yawning yellow trousers; spotless black shoes (if you don't count a splodge of fade on 'pension' patent leather); sun-blocking black hat; reflective black sunglasses; oh, the meddling, messy sweat rivulet drifting down his right leg. He made the morning smile.

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Monday, September 26, 2011

Random Radio Experts

Another caught my eloping ear this melancholy Monday morning. It was ‘crystal’ that he merely chanced to know some jockey ‘jackassing’ close to the ‘effing’ FM console. Stepped off the stinky streets as Joe Shmoe, then sat in the studio as the Duke of Air-head-inburgh. What did we expect? Some more of the ostrich analysis.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Was Kwame Nkrumah A Young Criminal?

High-risk start, but it's out of the way. I've recently read a Malcom Gladwell book (again), and recently seen the murder-of-stowaways movie, Deadly Voyage. Both book and movie led me irresistibly to think about Kwame Nkrumah.

The book argues that high fliers owe their cachet to various elements: circumstances of birth; time and place of birth; a little ability; a little opportunity; a little luck; a lot social support.

The macabre movie re-enacts the true-life tale of Kingsley Ofosu, his brother and their more-than-a-handful colleagues who stowed away on a Russian or Ukrainian ship to France. Only Kingly made it (barely). His brother and fellow stowaways were bludgeoned, hacked and shot do death and fodder-flung to sharks or whatever lurks in the deep.

But I almost digress.

Nkrumah was born at a time when slavery had been abolished. Education in Gold-Coast-Ghana was possible to the level just before university. He had a reasonably rich uncle in Lagos, Nigeria. He obtained admission to an American university. He oozed oodles of ambition and whatever-it-takes.

Nkrumah saved some money; oh, just enough to buy him a few meals outside of home. He needed to get to America. What did he do? He stowed away on a boat. He was a risk-taker. But, he was not an non-calculated-risk junkie. He did not take the trans-Atlantic deadly voyage. The landlubber 'lotteried' his life only as far as Lagos. His uncle gave him loads of money. He returned to Gold-Coast-Ghana and paid for his passage to Britain, en route to America. He got his B.A., then M.A., the PhD.

Did Kwame Nkrumah commit peccadilloes (like travel without paying)? Yes. Was he jailed for any misdemeanour in America? Find out. Was his leadership of Ghana cruel at times? I think so.

But, in spite of everything, (or rather because of them, to think like Gladwell), Kwame Nkrumah was nothing short of an Outlier. A man with a lot of savoir faire and (to repeat) whatever-it-takes. Happy Birthday, Francis Nwia Kofi Nkrumah.

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Monday, September 19, 2011

Silent Feminists & Really Loud Dowries

The myriad meanings of feminism floor my simple mind. And when you have one meaning locked down, it gives you different layers. I said "Hi Sexy" to a friend on social media, and she censured me for "objectifying" her. I switched off, unwilling to deal with her eggshell self (more trouble if she reads this).

Now, dowries. The dowry is no longer token or symbolic in urban Ghana. Those who demand it require 'market' value. If you're a 'bogga', then pay in US Dollars.

Feminists. I haven't heard any feminists in Ghana demand abolition or 'price controls'. So, are feminists getting married; real dowry marriages?

Layers. Let's take one layer. Is it easy to ignore this obvious 'commoditisation' (forget 'Hi Sexy') because it's the parents (and not their daughters) who are 'selling' (i.e. receiving the dowries)?

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Friday, September 9, 2011

The Risk of Recent Reveries

Ghana. 1957.

How do you un-teach the colonial id? Teachers, teachers, teachers! Enter King Kwame Nkrumah.

Green graduates from lucent Legon are civically coaxed to desert collective-clan desires; no present need for all those bankers and lawyers and accountants. Go and teach! I will pay you better than them, anyway.

The rest is anti-heroic history. Nkrumah waned. Coming kings re-colonised and paid serf-rates to our educators.

Ghana. Present day.

Beware, all those people whose heads are sailing slick in oil-and-gas dreams. You may be the new teachers.

Damsel Twice Distressed

Last Tuesday at ten pm, a woman's Seat 'something' sedan struck a sudden flame which snarled to scorch the car to cinders. Other cars stopped to help; no less than twelve counted I. The guy who 'kerbed' his Land Rover first, and brought out a fire extinguisher (kind man, bless his heart) would not accept anything more than her thanks. Except for the price of his extinguisher- thirty Ghana Cedis! Who asked him to help?

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Sunday, September 4, 2011

Wisdom Over A Fufu Bowl

The women chow down massive mounds; the men just chirp and peck. Or so it strikes one at Lalas Local at 18 Junction.

My fulsome gob of Fufu & Goat-Light fast grows lighter; the women wolf down morsels; the men mouth up words.

The full facts flop in my face over a cleaned-out, soup-stained dish. The women go to eat; the men go to take the women there.

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Saturday, September 3, 2011

Death by Lightning

If it was a stroll in the park for all things evil to smite the blameless with a lightning bolt in the days before 'the light', why did anybody survive to be colonised?

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Thursday, September 1, 2011

Yeah, PermEnent...

As seen in the Spintex Road traffic. True to his promise, the gridlock was not permEnent. I reached the Mall only 15 minutes after I took this picture. The Mall was only 40 metres away.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Chaos In The Very Heart Of The City Of Accra

...and the biggest news item on health over the week has been whether heart patients should stay home and pray for their lives because the foremost heart surgeon was revered but released the government.

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Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bra Failure In The City of Accra

The 'Cleavage Gallery' is an art exhibition I'm thrice-thrilled to attend everyday. Sans-bra is another dashing, delightful devilment at the other end. But when the cups runneth over as a result of 'syncopated' styrofoam, please do not call the wearer a 'Brartist'.

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Who Sells The Drugs In The City of Accra?

In this nation of saints and sinners (and I do not belong permanently to either group) I was surprised to see the public perplexed about the alleged compromise of anti-narcotic agents by drug barons.

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Tuesday, August 23, 2011

“Thank God We Are Not A Nigerians”

You’re playing football with your sibling in your backyard, when a miscued (but intended) hard kick floats over the wall onto your neighbour’s grounds and smacks your friend (who lives there) in the face, drawing blood from his nose. Yes, you were just playing, and the bleeding will stop, but should he just forgive you? Or should he scale the wall and thwack you right back on the chin?

So, there is a song by a very interesting pair of Ghanaian musicians – Wanlov and Mensa, also known as FOKN Bois – which has sailed over the wall and landed with a thud in the face of their neighbour.

I have not heard the song myself, but the title is (syntax stumble intended) “Thank God We Are Not A Nigerians”. 

Friday, August 19, 2011

Marking Maltesers

Sneaked out of the office freezer
Boldly branded against sticky fingers
Stapled to make doubly sure
Tantalising teasers

Monday, August 15, 2011

A Lovely, Educated Public

I was lounging at the curiously-christened 'Luscious Temptations', at East Legon, last Saturday, with fellow bloggers Kobby Graham, Nii Ayertey and Edward Tagoe, discussing the extinct education in ‘gambling’ Ghana. Then, today, I stumble across a news item that Nana Akufo-Addo (a presidential candidate) promises a “lovely, educated public” within a decade, if he wins Elections 2012. Sadly, the news report (shameful for a digital medium like myjoyonline) skips his ‘blowhard’ building blocks for achieving such lettered loveliness.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Electric Bills & 'Compound' Houses in the City of Accra

A compound clustered with twenty tiny cubicles - detached or semi - with twenty families 'tadpoled' into them. Human activity is measured by one power meter.

One government worker possesses the Tv, the hot plate, the iron, the fan and the fridge. Nineteen other families 'temp' his toys from him; cook their gruel on his hot plate, preserve their meat in his fridge and watch cheap South American Tv soaps into his sleeping time.

When the electric shock (sorry, bill) kicks in on the 29th, the landlord, without calculating, coldly carves a chubby chunk for 'white collar' to settle. The 19 families plead penury and unemployment and 'snitch' that it is the government man who hoards the Tv and other gainful gadgets. Nobody wishes to install a separate meter for their room alone.

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Tuesday, August 9, 2011

When Your Debtor Says You Owe Him

Mr. B. Borrower (B for ‘Barbarian’) cadged his friend, Mr. B. Birdbrain (B for ‘Boob’) for a loan of 200 Ghana Cedis. Birdbrain had only 150 that day, and loved his neighbour more than himself by handing it all over. Birdbrain felt his heart moved by the frowning face of wretched Borrower and pledged to provide the extra 50 Cedis on the morrow. The discourteous debtor accepted the 150 Cedis and said “Thanks. So you owe me 50 Cedis”!

What? Was it impudence or lazy language use?

(True story, made-up names. W’abodam papa!)

Monday, August 8, 2011

Social Media's Upheaval

Cynicism seized my mind and ceased my heart as I watched horrible fires and rioting in Clapham, Ealing Broadway, Croydon and Peckam. The kids are apparently not organised crime gangs. They're just angry teens with ski masks and no jobs or social centres. They're 'organising' with social media. The level of deprivation is more dire in Accra. Should we hope the poorest and street kids do not discover social media and its organisational advantages or find it affordable? God help the poor. God help the rich to help the poor. Or else, God help the rich!

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Friday, August 5, 2011

Caught on the Crotch-Watch

(Welcome to Silly Friday)

Women always cavil that men address their cleavage in conversation instead of their faces. Well, it’s true, and we aren’t ashamed to admit it. For many years, I’ve been catching women watching my crotch from the corner of their eyes (and other men’s crotches too). Of course, they pretend no such thing has happened. It happens particularly in offices when the woman is sitting down as you approach her. So we ‘cornered’ a colleague who admitted it to us and blamed it on our tight or body-fitting clothes. We did not bother to counter with a question on their low necklines – somehow we knew they’d say it wasn’t quite the same. She said she wondered if some guys kept a pot in their crotch.

As long as you remain on the crotch-watch, we’ll feel free with the cleavage eye-grope.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Living in a Bubble

A doctor friend asked me, "Who can survive on only one job today?"

A student friend asked me, "Whose mummy doesn't have a car?"

It's falsely looking like a monster middle class in Ghana. Who's doing hard work? Who's doing honest work? Who's doing only one? Whose mummy doesn't have a car?

When will the bubble burst? Would it be violent?

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